Fred Ostrander
After the Play
The stage, its thousand nails, paper walls, painted windows
and the players speaking, shouting, pointing, accusing,
falling, dying, sulking, complaining, doing their death...
It is after the play that we separate into lonely languages,
that the spirit collapses in its strings,
after the play that we find the exit and the rain.
Other faces, behind masks, continue speaking, it is unfollowable,
we cannot hear or see.
I open the great black umbrella, spokes and cloth
like another life-form, flower, a black dahlia
or a form of spider, or black beetle, thinking
there is a moment when the fancy occurs, entering
the dazzling, blinding street-rain, and the oncoming
death-like head-lights. So many
have been driven, and sealed, into the past
without the gift of returning. They do not reappear
upon the changing horizon of the changing future.
There is a disruption beyond will or control, like wanting or death
the unexpected meeting,
an involuntary love,
a wish of moonlight upon the next field,
the branches of a black tree.
I have a vision of one receding, as in a boat upon a lake,
while waving silently in departure.
And the circling point of light, the shutter and lens
of the information satellite
will seek and follow as he begins his traveling.
and the players speaking, shouting, pointing, accusing,
falling, dying, sulking, complaining, doing their death...
It is after the play that we separate into lonely languages,
that the spirit collapses in its strings,
after the play that we find the exit and the rain.
Other faces, behind masks, continue speaking, it is unfollowable,
we cannot hear or see.
I open the great black umbrella, spokes and cloth
like another life-form, flower, a black dahlia
or a form of spider, or black beetle, thinking
there is a moment when the fancy occurs, entering
the dazzling, blinding street-rain, and the oncoming
death-like head-lights. So many
have been driven, and sealed, into the past
without the gift of returning. They do not reappear
upon the changing horizon of the changing future.
There is a disruption beyond will or control, like wanting or death
the unexpected meeting,
an involuntary love,
a wish of moonlight upon the next field,
the branches of a black tree.
I have a vision of one receding, as in a boat upon a lake,
while waving silently in departure.
And the circling point of light, the shutter and lens
of the information satellite
will seek and follow as he begins his traveling.
Page(s) 29-30
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